The career of Gregg Araki, one-time enfant terrible of "new queer cinema", has been nothing if not frustrating. Early works such as Totally F***ed Up, Nowhere and The Doom Generation veered wildly between anarchic invention and irritatingly self-conscious craziness, courting controversy for controversy's sake. Things settled down somewhat with 2004's Mysterious Skin, which suggested to many that Araki had finally grown up and reined in his indulgent excesses. Strange then that, months after turning 50, Araki chose to return to his arrested adolescence with a film that turns everything up to 11. Stranger still that Kaboom (2010, Artificial Eye, 15) is so much fun; a surprisingly upbeat and jolly tale of apocalyptic polymorphous perversity which was one of the unexpected treats of last year's Cannes festival.

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Filmed in hallucinatory hues, the narrative centres nominally on tousle-haired student Smith (Thomas Dekker), whose sexuality is "undecided", but who has the hots for his sporty roommate, Thor. Really.

Into his immediate orbit spin a demonic witch, a trio of men wearing animal masks and a mysterious red-haired girl who may be a dream, all of whom appear to be conjoined by the kind of gradually unfolding global conspiracy that Dan Brown would have cooked up were he less interested in religion and more interested in orgasms. Although it may sound every bit as contrived as his most irksome works, Araki's latest boasts both a quasi-Lynchian darkness and a vibrant conviviality, which sweeps the viewer up in its headlong rush towards... whatever. Particular plaudits go to rising Brit-pack star Juno Temple (now filming the next Batman film, The Dark Knight Rises) and cinematographer Sandra Valde-Hansen, who balances the comic and cracked elements with aplomb.

"You will be unprepared," declares the tagline to Sucker Punch (2011, Warner, 12), although anyone even passingly familiar with director Zack Snyder's previous efforts will know exactly what to expect from the high prince of dress-up. In 300, Snyder took a politically complex historical comic strip and turned it into an enjoyable romp about butch men prancing around in leather pants. With Watchmen, he reduced an epochal vision of an alternative past to an endless catalogue of mildly fetishistic rubber wear. Now, with Sucker Punch, Zack has excelled himself, channelling the shrieking hysteria of Sam Fuller's psychodrama Shock Corridor and reconfiguring it into an Arlene Phillips-style pop promo.

What there is of a plot revolves around an abused young woman being sent to a mental asylum where, on the point of lobotomisation, she escapes into an alternative fantasy world of burlesque and battles – or does she? Who cares? Certainly not Snyder, who just seems really pleased at having come up with an excuse to get girls fighting monsters while dressed as strippers. Wars are waged, bombs are dropped and beasties bashed over the head, but none of it has any impact whatsoever. In the end, Snyder simply gives up on any pretence of narrative and stages an ill-fitting end credits number in which two characters incongruously sing "Love is the Drug" as if auditioning for a remake of Chicago. Considering the cocktail of corsets, monsters, exploding aeroplanes and hand-to-hand violence, it's genuinely stunning just how skull-crushingly dull Sucker Punch manages to be. The triple-play DVD/Blu-ray/digital pack boasts an "extended cut", which merely prolongs the boredom. Snyder is currently filming the new Superman movie, Man of Steel; presumably he'll have a nice cape.

In Faster (2010, Sony, 15), Dwayne "Don't Call Me the Rock" Johnson gets into a car and shoots a bunch of people while learning important lessons about the futility of vengeance and the redemptive power of forgiveness. Not. It's nuts and bolts stuff, with bill-paying supporting performances from Billy Bob Thornton and Tom Berenger and B-movie direction from George Tillman Jr.

There's even less in the way of subtlety on offer in Your Highness (2011, Entertainment One, 15), the broadest of bawdy yarns, which arrives on DVD in an extended cut dubbed "The Longer Harder Version" – a gag typical of the feature. The only real surprises are the presence of Natalie Portman, who clearly wanted to goof off after the trials of Black Swan, and the fact that it's directed by David Gordon Green, whose early work drew comparisons to Terrence Malick, but who now seems content to make stoner knob gags.

Despite its star-studded cast (Kevin Costner, Ben Affleck, Tommy Lee Jones, Chris Cooper, Maria Bello), The Company Men (2010, Universal, 15) barely troubled UK cinemas, its release passing almost as unnoticed as the downsizing redundancies that it chronicles with sincerity, if not flair. Affleck is the Porsche-driving yuppie who loses his job and winds up banging nails for his salt-of-the-earth brother-in-law (Costner), a working man who, unlike so many around him, actually makes things other than money for a living. It's earnest fare, handled with televisual efficiency by producer turned director John Wells.

Finally, hooray for Kelly Reichardt's atmospheric western Meek's Cutoff (2010, Sony, PG), which was unfairly beaten to the Golden Lion by Sofia Coppola's Somewhere at Venice last year. Strong performances from an ensemble cast including Michelle Williams, Paul Dano and Shirley Henderson add weight to this tale of settlers cast adrift in the Oregon desert in 1845. It's a tough watch, requiring patience certainly, but rewarding for those ready to go the distance.

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